Come Away, with Sweeping Promises
Photo: Shawn Brackbill
Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug met in the Arkansas music scene of the late 2000s, quickly becoming friends and writing partners. Caufield was 19; Lira was 20. A decade later, a jam session in Boston gave birth to their current project, Sweeping Promises. Their 2020 release, Hunger for a Way Out, earned praise from Brooklyn Vegan and NME and others, eventually leading to a sophomore effort on Sub Pop and Ohio’s Feel It Records—2023’s Good Living Is Coming for You. Named one of NPR’s 50 Best Albums of the year, the Good Living cemented the duo’s place in a long line of post-punk greats—they’d fit right in on a bill with Kleenex/LiLiPUT, Suburban Lawns, or Boston’s own short-lived early 2000s trio, Squids. You can catch them live on tour with Bikini Kill through September or, get your minimal, angular dance on this Saturday with an intimate gig right here at Myrtle.
The Well (TW): Sweeping Promises, welcome back to town! What does Rhode Island mean to you?
Sweeping Promises (SP): We spent about a decade in the East Coast (Boston) music scene before moving to Kansas; we'd play Providence every now and then in our many previous bands: Mini Dresses, Dee-Parts, Blau Blau, Splitting Image, Silkies, the list goes on! We see Rhode Island as an important and inspirational node in the East Coast underground music matrix!
TW: Thanks for including us! Who were you as kids, long before all the bands?
SP: In broad strokes, Lira and Caufield grew up in the South as weirdo nerds, music obsessives, academically-inclined, and eventually Arkansas-bound. Caufield started music young, began playing shows in punk bands when he was 13 years old in Austin. Subculture saved his life. Lira was in youth choir programs and would sing every chance she could get growing up, secretly wanting to be in bands but not sure how to enact that fantasy in her small town.
Above: Artwork for Pain Without a Touch (Sub Pop, 2021)
TW: We’re always curious to learn how artists are supporting themselves; what’s making it work for you?
SP: Tour is the main income. Caufield works on about 40 albums a year in some engineering capacity to supplement that. We live ascetically in Kansas, and it took us 15 years to acquire our own gear and self-recording skills, without which we would not be able to exist now. Caufield's dad is a luthier and helps with gear and van repairs. Our network of friends and fans help us immeasurably on the road. The music industry has been captured almost entirely by robber barons who will not stick around once the other shoe drops. At least it feels like the rampant exploitation in this industry is becoming more widely acknowledged.
TW: Got a favorite stop on tour?
SP: One remote region we enjoy is Marfa, Texas! We try to travel there on tour when possible, and once we went there for a week to attempt music-writing. The semi-alien landscape there is like a hormone for the imagination. We wrote some songs from Good Living Is Coming for You there.
TW: Can you give us a little look behind the curtain—your recording process, influences, or ideas about who you’re writing for?
SP: We are interested in finding non-standard recording and performance techniques, which port radical political ideas/sentiments into defamiliarizing yet rigorously-arrayed sound ideas. We are cinephiles; Caufield even pursued a PhD in film studies! We often write and mix our music with films in mind. Sometimes we project films silently while we make music. We [also] support charitable causes and creative community work in our hometown, offering affordable recording rates to new bands, etc.
TW: Cool stuff! We know you’re super busy with tour right now, so we’ll keep this one short. Before we split though—got any books or texts that feel important to your life and practice?
SP: In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas, and Air and Dreams by Gaston Bachelard.
TW: Thanks! We’ll see you (and our readers) Saturday night, September 7, 2024.
